


o sunlit white and blue

by kimaracretak



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/F, First Kiss, Fluff, Picnics, Summer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:26:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22611733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimaracretak/pseuds/kimaracretak
Summary: Rosie goes for a picnic and meets a beautiful woman by the river.
Relationships: Rose Cotton/Goldberry
Comments: 9
Kudos: 16
Collections: 2020 My Slashy Valentine





	o sunlit white and blue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LadyLaran](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyLaran/gifts).



Summer layers itself over the Shire in bands of golds and greens and blues, thick as honey and twice as sweet, and Rosie Cotton makes her way down to the Water with a picnic basket overflowing with bread and cheese. A song on her lips, a spring in her step, and with the heady scent of berries clinging to all the hedgerows she passes she feels - oh, she feels ever so alive with possibility.

Summer is a good season in the Shire, full of growing things and hard work and short starlit nights. It is a season for the lingering sun to give an extra bit of permission to any Hobbit lass whose feet sometimes wish to wander, and perhaps that is why Rosie finds herself walking rather past her usual picnic spot on the edge of Bywater Pool and heading further south. The earth is pleasantly warm against her bare feet, the light breeze sets her dress to dancing around her legs and keeps her from growing too hot under the morning sun, and even the laden basket seems no more trouble to lift than a feather.

Because Rosie is quite sure something marvellous is going to happen.

Oh, nothing so scandalous as a proper adventure - Rosie is a Cotton, after all, not a Took or a Baggins, and yet she is certain there is plenty to be found in the space between the endless days of work on the farm with her brothers and the sort of adventuring someone like Bilbo Baggins got up to. And she is just as certain that today she is going to explore some of that space, for that, after all, is the promise of Shire summers.

The sun is approaching its midpoint in the sky when Rosie's stomach begin to rumble. It is definitely lunchtime, she thinks, as the wind picks up just enough that the still-sweet smell of the bread she's brought hits her nose again. She makes her careful way down the slope of the riverbank, the ground growing damp between her toes - enough to cool her slightly as she draws nearer the water, but fortunately not so muddy that she runs the risk of being unable to find a comfortable spot to sit, for while it could never be said that Rosie Cotton was afraid of a bit of mud, she didn't fancy the thought of continuing her little stroll in dirty clothes, or of having to stop for too long to clean her dress in the water and wait for it to dry.

Rosie settles on a slight ledge just at the edge of the river, where she can pull up her skirts and dangle her feet in the current as she sets out her spread. It's a simple collection, warm bread and hard cheese, with a small jar of honey and a collection of mushrooms, all finished off with some good mint tea in a flask. Simple, yes, but most importantly _hers_ , with no brothers or Tooks or Gamgees to make nuisances of themselves trying to steal any of it.

The grassy bank slopes upwards behind her, and across the water the opposite bank does the same. It rather gives Rosie the illusion that she is the only person in the world, hidden away in a valley full of warm greens and blues, nothing moving to be seen besides the idly bobbing lily pads dancing through the current, nothing to hear but the lazy drift of the water, moving just enough that it sends idle whispers across Rosie's skin.

Rosie plucks a flower as she eats, something with pale purple petals and a long stem that she doesn't quite recognise. She doesn't have it in her garden, and she wishes, all of a moment, for something to press it in, to preserve it, so that she could take the seeds home and see what she could make of them. Or, failing that, for someone to sit with, so that she could braid the flowers into their hair and see what they looked like there.

Although - what was to stop her from experimenting? Rosie plucks two more flowers and weaves the stems into her long braid. She pulls the braid over her shoulder, smiling at the petals standing out against her brown hair. Curious as to the full effect, she leans over the water, where her reflection is visible, though slightly wavy as rings spiral out across the surface from where the very ends of her hair dip just slightly into the river.

Rosie smiles at her reflection. Her reflection laughs back, blinks, tilts her head.

Rosie squeaks in surprise and scrambles back up the bank, flowers and food alike mostly forgotten as she tries to calm her racing heart. Surely she is just imagining things, on this bright day full of hazy sun and good food - reflections didn't move on their own.

But, Rosie is forced to admit, beautiful women could do that, and perhaps beautiful women could hide in reflections. For out of the river emerges what must be the prettiest woman Rosie's ever seen: short for one of the big folk, but with long limbs, golden hair that ripple down her back as if it, too is water - it moved as if it were dry, and yet shone with the river-water and dripped down over the thin green gown that clung to her skin like she'd been born in it.

"Well," Rosie says, because she is at a loss for anything else to say; and then, "Tea?" because she does, at least, still have her manners.

The woman laughs, light and musical. "No, thank you, I'm afraid I have already imposed on you quite enough. Besides," she says as she reaches down to pick one of the lilies from the river's surface, "I have plenty of my own. The river provides." 

Rosie watches in fascination and no little disbelief as the woman places the flower in her mouth and chews thoughtfully. "Um. If - if you're sure, then, I suppose."

"I am!" The woman says brightly, and then she blinks, refocuses on Rosie with a new intensity. "But you've been quite polite and I haven't been in the slightest. My name is Goldberry, and this is my home, for now."

"Rose Cotton," Rosie says, before she can think the better of giving her name to strangers, even ones who look like Goldberry. "Do you - do you mean you live on the river, then?"

Goldberry's brow furrows, like no one's ever asked her that before. "More - well, it's more that I live in the river, you see. That's what it means to be a river-daughter."

The name seems almost familiar, tugging at some old memories of bedtime stories and Shire legends somewhere at the back of Rosie's mind. But in the moment, it doesn't quite seem important, because Goldberry's still smiling at her, wide and open and with a hand outstretched.

It's easy, then, for Rosie to make her choice - it feels impossible that she could make any other, with Goldberry looking like she does. Rosie knows better than to stare, but she can't deny that Goldberry makes it very east to want to. "You should stay, at least. Since you're here. And no one's ever resisted my good bread." She may not be sure how bread tastes with water lilies, but she does know that she wants Goldberry to stay.

Goldberry sits, eyeing the picnic basket as if it is a foreign object she has no idea what to do with, and Rosie scoots down the bank to join her, all her previous surprise vanished and replaced with a much more pleasant type of nerves. She fixes a small piece of bread with cheese and honey and hands it to Goldberry - or intends to. Instead of taking it in hand, Goldberry ducks her head to eat the morsel directly from Rosie's hand, leaving a kiss on her fingertips along the way.

Rosie makes an undignified, pleased noise, and Goldberry laughs as she swallows the food. "Oh, this is quite lovely, Rosie Cotton," she says.

"Well," Rosie says, and hopes she isn't blushing as much as she feels she is, "You'll just have to stay for more."

And Goldberry does.

She stays long enough to declare that she loves the bread and dislikes the tea, and relays both of those facts to Rosie with a delight so sincere that it sets Rosie to laughing. "Why, have you never tasted anything of the sort before?"

Goldberry appears to give the matter serious consideration. "No," she decides. "I eat only what I can find, and only what the river gives, really. No one's ever made something like this for me before."

Rosie, who has both manners and a truly unfamiliar amount of affection for this woman, does not say that she hadn't intended to make anything for Goldberry this time, but privately resolves that she must do so soon.

Goldberry stays through talk of the summer's growth and the harvest plans, with the occasional pleas for more information or peals of laughter when Rosie relates the latest mischief Pippin has caused in Farmer Maggot's fields. She stays when Rosie pulls out her knitting and plucks blades of grass to weave in a mimicry, hands deft and in perfect rhythm with her soft humming the whole time, and she stays after she's added violets and lavender to the crown and placed it on Rosie's head.

She stays until the sun is dipping low in the sky, pinks and oranges scattering amongst the few wisps of cloud, and Rosie begins to pack away her things with slow, reluctant hands. "Have you got somewhere to go?" Rosie asks, because it is easier to say than _will I see you again?_ Surely if a Took could take a fairy to wife, she could stay longer with Goldberry: it feels big, and secret, and delightful and warm and all sorts of other things Rosie can't think of, still somewhat lost in the drifting joy of the day.

Goldberry gestures to river, expansive and even more beautiful in the sunset than it had been at the height of noon. "I have a world. I'll show it to you, someday. If you like."

Rosie smiles so wide her cheeks hurt with it, with promise and possibility. "I do like. I like very much."

And then, because she can, she leans up on her tiptoes and kisses Goldberry's mouth, soft and sweet with the aftertaste of honey and river-water. It feels good to be bold, even if only Goldberry is there to see, even if, perhaps, Goldberry does not know that this is bold, for a hobbit.

But what matters is that she does, and that Goldberry kisses her back, and that one day, soon, they will do this all again.


End file.
